Rental Bike in London ロンドン市内のレンタル自転車事情

Although I am acting like Brompton's Big Fan now, it is only a few months ago that I knew the brand name Brompton. But it is true that I have been interested in Londoners' lifestyle with bicycles since I arrived at London in January.

In the beginning, I did not think about buying my own bicycle. Instead, I decided to rent bicycles when I felt like to. There was a rental base in front of the back door of my apartment.

The rental fee could be paid in two ways, Pay each time or pay annually. I chose the latter one and the annual fee was about 40 pounds as I remember. A week after I filled out a application form and sent to London city office, I received a stick key valid for one year.

自転車乗り場はどこも無人で、そこにある自転車を選んで借りていきます。自転車で移動した先にもたいてい無人の自転車乗り場があり、そこに自分が乗ってきた自転車を乗り捨てます。ロンドン市内には無数にこの自転車乗り場が設置されており、仮に目的地周辺に見あたらない場合でも例えばiphoneで近くの乗り場を検索することが出来るなど、大変ユーザーフレンドリーなシステムでした。
Once you received a key, you can rent at any of rental base in London, ride a bike to one's destination and dropped off at the rental base near by the desitnation. There are many rental bases all over the city and also you can find nearest one very easily with iphone software, too.

無事に認証が終わると自転車を取り出せます。返却時も確実に格納されると緑のランプが点灯します。

ただ、この自転車、大変重たくて、またデザインも決してCoolではありませんでした。乗り心地は至極快適とは言えませんでしたが、丈夫であることは間違いなさそうでした。ですからロンドンに住む人たちはむしろ自分の好みと用途に合った自転車に乗るわけで、Londonでの同僚達の乗るスタイリッシュな自転車を日々眺めているうちに私も自分の自転車があればなあという思いは滞在して間もない頃から少しずつ醸成されていたのかも知れません。
Nevertheless, this bicycle is really heavy and its design is not cool. I assumed that it would endured long time use. My colleague from London had her own bike, another colleague from Copenhagen bought his own bike in London. They looked cool and I liked their styles. So it may be true that I had started dreaming of buying my own bike in my early days in London.